3.20 Tin Man Elbrun associated with a famously botched first contact mission, which makes the crew uneasy. Especially Riker, whose friends died in the incident. It also transpires that Elbrun was one of Troi’s patients when she was studying psychiatry, so remember: everything that happens from this point on is partially her fault. The plan is for Elbrun to use his mind-powers to coax the Tin Man away from the star it’s orbiting, which is about to explode. Unfortunately, he’s barely-hinged and overwhelmed by the number of minds on the Enterprise. He snaps at Riker. He gets annoyed at Picard. And he punches a replicator in the face when it gives him lapsang instead of oolong (probably). He’s fascinated by Data, though, because he cannot read robo-minds. Just as Riker and Picard are starting to realise that Elbrun is basically insane, a Romulan Warbird catches up with the Enterprise and a brief firefight ensues. The Enterprise is disabled and the Warbird speeds towards the Tin Man. Elbrun uses their psychic link to warn it, which makes it emit a huge burst of energy that destroys the warbird completely, and further damages the Enterprise. No-one is especially pleased about this, not least a huge number of Romulan families who are going to spend the rest of their lives wondering what happened to their relative. Picard is annoyed at how Elbrun displayed no regard for the Enterprise’s safety and refuses to allow Elbrun more contact with the Tin Man until the ship is fixed. The continue to study the Tin Man from a distance, and Elbrun reveals that he knows more about it now. The being is known as Gomtuu (9 points in Scrabble) it used to be a living starship. It hasn’t encountered another of its kind in thousands of years, and it’s using the star’s supernova to commit suicide in a needlessly dramatic fashion (let it never be said that living starships don’t know how to make an exit). TNG WTF: At least one Romulan ship is destroyed in this episode. That’s a lot of lives extinguished because they happened to turn up in the same sector as the Enterprise. Elbrun is notionally responsible, but the Federation lets him up and leave in a star-cucumber, never to be seen again. The Romulans seem awfully fine about this, and the destruction of their ship. How did it not result in interstellar war?! TNG LOL: Elbrun arrives on a transfer from Starbase 123. Or Starbase Placeholder as it’s known in the writers room. Who’s That Face?: Tam Elbrun? More like RICHARD WILKINS III, the mayor from Buffy. It’s fair to say he’s got a lot less to work with in TNG, since he’s playing Chump of the Week. I believe this gives that Harry Groener the distinction of being the only Star Trek actor to eat another Star Trek actor in another series (the Mayor eats Principal Snyder, aka Armin Shimerman/Quark). Although if you can prove me wrong on that front, please do. Time Until Meeting: 7:23. They’ve barely even finished rolling the credits. Captain’s Log: Here’s the big problem with this episode: you can guess the ending almost as soon as the basic set up is established. Here’s an emotionally disturbed telepath who specialises in contacting non-bipedal life and hates living with other people. Here’s a lonely space dart, built to be a starship but lacking a crew, depressed because it has nothing to live for. How could this POSSIBLY play out? Even if you forgive that, the episode doesn’t have a lot to do with the rest of the crew. There’s a lot of Geordi tweaking some minor settings in engineering while attempting to fix the ship, and those scenes feel like someone’s idea of what happens in Star Trek, rather than what actually happens in Star Trek. The final scene sort of brings it around to “Data learns that his home is on the Enterprise”, but that revelation doesn’t really spring out of the rest of the story, nor is it a question posed at any point prior to the final scenes. It’s easy to use Data as a way to give the episode the illusion of a point (ah, Data. Is there anything you can’t learn? Except how to use contractions, I mean.) but in this case it comes across as massively trite and worse still, tacked on. Watch or Skip? Skip. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
